Unless otherwise indicated herein, the description in this section is not prior art to the claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
An image processing apparatus such as a scanner, a printer, a copier, or a multi-functional peripheral has been widely used in offices and similar place. The image processing apparatus is often connected to an information processing terminal such as a personal computer via a network such as a Local Area Network (LAN) in the offices and similar place, and shared among a plurality of users.
Such image processing apparatus includes a large-capacity hard disk drive (HDD). This ensures available for use by many users. This HDD additionally stores, for example, application software to achieve various functions included in the image processing apparatus. The image processing apparatus includes a CPU that reads this software, and executes the software to achieve various kinds of the functions.
For example, mounting of the HDD is executed in the image processing apparatus for activation to ensure access (data reading and data writing) to the HDD of the image processing apparatus. The image processing apparatus recognizes the HDD as hardware, and obtains file system management information stored in the HDD in this mounting. This ensures access to the HDD.
There has been a proposed technique that facilitates the confirmed consistency of file system management information when mounting as a technique related to such mounting. In this technique, a flag is set to “ON” indicating a possibility of non-consistency while executing a write request or a deletion request to a data storage unit of a storage medium. Then, the flag is set to an “OFF” after completing the process normally. Thus, referring to this flag ensures the confirmed consistency of the file system management information.